The OF Blog: More re-reading plans

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

More re-reading plans

Hoping to have reviews of Frank Herbert's Children of Dune and Robert Jordan's The Dragon Reborn up either tonight or sometime Thursday.  Some interesting re-evaluations are taking place with both of these, but more on that in the actual commentaries.  Enjoying this much more than I had expected, especially since these have served as needed breaks between a whole host of activities, some of which are still in progress.

In fact, I am going to extend this re-reading/commentary a bit more to encompass a few more in-progress epic fantasy series that I've either never reviewed here at this blog or I have not re-read at all in several years, or both.  Right now, I think I might start commentaries on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series after I finish the six original Dune Chronicles books, since a) I've never written any sort of review of any of the books, and b) I haven't read one of the novels in full since late 2002.

And if I have the energy after that, I'm considering doing re-reads/commentaries on R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing trilogy (no re-reads since 2006) and possibly Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen (I only reviewed the last two volumes, and perhaps my takes on the others will have changed in the interim).  And I think after that, there really wouldn't be any epic fantasies that I haven't already reviewed that I would want to (re)read/review in full. 

Of course, this is not neglecting other fictions that I shall be reading.  I have temporarily abandoned that plan of reading/reviewing a book a day due to other duties, but I do hope to return to reviewing several of those, if not every single one.  Plus I have the new Gene Wolfe to review sometime.  And a Spanish-language novel or two as well, if any are interested in any of those.  Plus I do have a long-delayed spotlight article to write about one of Portugal's leading fantasists, David Soares.  I meant to have that posted by mid-February, but job problems and other personal issues led me to keep putting that off, but I do owe some people my reflections on two of his novels.

More later.  Would like to nap some more.  Regular sleep seems to be a thing of the past, unfortunately.

6 comments:

Aidan Moher said...

Larry,

I've been enjoying your re-read series, but instead of going back to authors like Bakker and Erikson (who everyone is talking about), I think it would be interesting to see you go back to authors of the 80's and early 90's (Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore, Raymond Feist, David Eddings, etc...); those authors who were incredible influences on the industry, but get little-to-no respect or airtime from critics today.

Just a thought,

Larry Nolen said...

Don't own any of their books and I still don't have a full-time job yet, so that's out of the question. Unless I still have the original Shannara trilogy somewhere. Not for sure if I do, though, to be honest.

Aidan Moher said...

No used bookstores? You could likely find their novels for the price of a cup of coffee. Either way, I'm looking forward to whichever direction you decide to go.

Larry Nolen said...

Maybe in a few weeks, when I decide which 1-2 dozen books I want to trade in (it's also a 40 mile drive to the used bookstore I frequent). But I usually acquire non-genre books there, so I don't know. Maybe later in the year.

Gabriele Campbell said...

I'll be looking forward to your take on Martin and Bakker. Sorta missed reviews of their books on your blog. ;)

Larry Nolen said...

Well, I was originally going to get a friend to write a review of The Judging Eye last year around its release time, but he's been so busy that a year later, it's still not up :P

It'll be interesting to see what I make of each, but it'll be several weeks yet. I'm only reviewing 2-3 books a series per week, so it might be 6-7 weeks before I'm through with the Dune, WoT, SOIAF, and PoN series.

 
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